Public cemetery commissioners did not violate Massachusetts' prisoner's rights to equal protection under the state constitution or state statutes by denying his request to purchase a burial plot for himself in the same cemetery in which his wife, who he was convicted of murdering, was buried. LaCava v. Lucander, No. 01-P-549, 791 N.E.2d 358 (Mass. App. 2003). [N/R]
     278:21 Trial court should not have granted summary judgment for deputy on prisoner's claim that a denial of a request to attend his mother's funeral was cruel and unusual punishment; prisoner, acting as his own lawyer, did not have sufficient notice or understanding of the need to submit sworn affidavits in support of his claim that the deputy denied his request in retaliation for his having filed complaints. McPherson v. Coombe, #98-2635, 174 F.3d 276 (2nd Cir. 1999).
     225:133 Negligent failure to allow prisoner to attend his mother's funeral after authorization for leave was signed was insufficient, if true, to state a claim for "cruel and unusual punishment." Thomas v. Farley, 31 F.3d 557 (7th Cir. 1994).
     Prisoner had no constitutional right to attend his uncle's funeral; city policy statement on funeral attendance did not give him an enforceable liberty interest in such attendance. Cruz v. Sielaff, 767 F.Supp. 547 (S.D.N.Y. 1991).